Obama Team Delays Releasing Findings

By

Jonathan Weisman

Updated Dec. 16, 2008 12:01 a.m. ET

President-elect Barack Obama's transition team said it had completed an internal review of contacts with Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich -- but wouldn't release its findings until Christmas week, at the request of federal investigators.

The move comes as Mr. Obama tries to keep the news of his home state's disgraced governor from overshadowing his transition, and highlights the challenges of dispensing with the controversy in the face of a live investigation involving Mr. Obama's Senate seat.

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Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich departs his home in Chicago, on Monday.
Associated Press

Mr. Obama, in a press conference called to announce his energy and environment team, said the review's conclusions underscore his prior statement that he had no contact with the governor or his staff, and that no one in the Obama camp was involved in inappropriate deal making over a successor for the president-elect's Senate seat.

By delaying the release, Mr. Obama has virtually guaranteed another week of speculation about who in the Obama team discussed what with Blagojevich aides. "I would ask for your patience because I do not want to interfere with an ongoing investigation," Mr. Obama told reporters in Chicago.

In a written statement released by his office late Monday, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald confirmed that he asked for the delay, saying he wanted more time to conduct interviews.

"After the President-elect announced an internal transition team investigation, the United States Attorney's Office requested a brief delay of the release of a report of that investigation to conduct certain interviews," Mr. Fitzgerald said.

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Barack Obama

Obama aides said Monday the transition team has tapped Gregory B. Craig, a prominent Washington lawyer and Mr. Obama's choice for White House counsel, to keep the U.S. attorney's office informed about internal deliberations during the transition.

Mr. Fitzgerald and other federal prosecutors often ask those affected by high-profile investigations to hold off on making public disclosures. Mr. Fitzgerald had suggested last week that his office was just beginning to interview people whose names might have come up in the secretly recorded conversations, or were also recorded.

But lawyers knowledgeable about such cases say Mr. Fitzgerald has no authority to compel the president-elect to stay silent on a matter that has clouded his transition and interfered with his policy messages.

"There is absolutely no legal impediment or injunction that Fitzgerald could put on them," said Stanley M. Brand, a Democratic lawyer with experience in such scandals. "They've decided not to talk."

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Robert Luskin, a Washington white-collar defense lawyer who knows Mr. Fitzgerald well, said he doesn't doubt the prosecutor would have asked that Obama officials keep quiet until his investigation is further along. That is to prevent witnesses from tailoring their stories to what they learn others are saying. But, he said, Mr. Obama and his aides don't have to comply. They are using the prosecutor as a "fig leaf" to avoid answering questions just now, Mr. Luskin said. They could just as easily have decided that assuring the public about their actions is more important than acceding to the prosecutor's request.

And Christmas week is a good time to bury news, added Robert Bennett, another prominent Washington defense lawyer.

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